


Indelicate

by Rosada



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Hale can't deal with humans, Gen, Minor Injuries, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosada/pseuds/Rosada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles trips and twists his ankle, which neither he nor Scott seem to make a big deal of. Derek, on the other hand, is oddly fascinated after he realizes that everyone he's ever known personally has had supernatural healing on their side (with one painful exception, of course). What surprises him more is the resilience with which Stiles handles the situation.</p>
<p>Humans are so indelicate, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indelicate

Derek was entirely wrapped up in his own head as he approached the McCall house, busy working over the problems--large and small alike--that came with being part of a pack. First he had to tell Scott to go make nightly rounds through their territory as he had finished up the day-watch five hours ago, then he had to make sure that there was food in the loft refrigerator for Cora, call Deaton to make sure there were no abnormalities in Beacon Hills that he had come across in the past few days, and then worry about training schedules for Isaac and Scott both. He was preparing to hustle Scott out of the house as he walked up the front steps when all of a sudden a strange sort of thumping caught his ears. It almost sounded like someone was irregularly pounding on the wall with a fist, the noise starting and stopping every few seconds. Frowning, he opened the door and was greeted with an odd sight indeed. Stiles had both hands on the kitchen counter with his left leg raised just enough to not be touching the ground and it didn't take superhuman eyes to spot the nasty swelling and purplish color of his foot. Stiles raised a hand in greeting and was cut off by Derek immediately.

"What the hell happened to you?" 

"Yeah man, good to see you too." The snort was entirely evident on the end of Stiles' words without him even having to add it. "I was jogging along and slipped. Came down on my toes wrong, my ankle went sideways, and unlike the rest of the freaks in this town, my foot went snap." 

Derek figured he must not have looked very concerned about the rest of it because Stiles shrugged and went back about his business, which appeared to be making himself a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich at ten-thirty at night in the McCall's kitchen. Scott came tumbling down the stairs and gave Derek a nod, then crossed the short hallway to grab his running shoes from beside the door. 

"I'm going, I'm going." He grunted at Derek, the true harried reluctance that only a teenager could call upon seeping into his voice. "Nothing will get past me tonight." Ever since the warning from Deaton about what the Darach's power had called upon them, they had come up with a system for patrolling the borders of Beacon Hills for any unwanted creatures trying to respond to the call of the nematon. No one had any idea what could be headed their way, but it was better to be safe than to be sorry.

"See you later, and don't you dare start the movie without me!" This was directed at Stiles, who snickered behind his hand and then winced when his toes tapped the ground. Scott took a moment to look worried, then hid it behind his usual smile and opened the door, loping off into the night. Derek was still positioned on the far side of the McCall table, watching Stiles for a reason he couldn't quite explain. It was odd, really, that he should be fascinated by human injury, but he'd never honestly seen it up close before. Sure, a boy in his class had once broken a finger playing basketball and worn a cast for a week or so, but they hadn't been close and Derek hadn't really cared. Now he considered Stiles, a person he grudgingly counted as a friend, as he limped and winced his way around the kitchen to prepare his late-night meal. Everyone else in his life was a werewolf, emissary, or other bizarre creature most people thought only existed in folklore and fairy tales. Stiles was just a human, though, with human talents and a human body. His bones didn't heal minutes after being broken, and scars left on his skin could be permanent. He was, in a word, mortal. 

Yet watching the boy bounce through the kitchen, hopping along on his good leg and catching himself with his arms, the gears of his mind visibly spinning as he worked out solutions to the sudden problems like "how to get his plate from the counter to the table without putting his foot down or dropping the plate", spelled that he was anything but fragile. He had to be in some degree of pain whenever he moved wrong or momentarily forgot his injury, but Stiles didn't make any real complaints about his condition. He just worked around it. 

"Did you even put anything on that?" It isn't as accusatory as his words make it sound, and somehow Stiles knows, nodding and seating himself gingerly at the table.

"A little ice earlier, and I had been keeping it elevated. It doesn't hurt too bad when I'm horizontal, but it's sure a bitch when I try putting it down. Took some ibuprofen, the usual. The scary part of it wasn't really twisting it, it was the part where I tried standing up again and the whole world started spinning. I seriously thought I was gonna die for a minute there, and then you all would have to have a funeral and go into full mourning for six months with all the black clothes and stuff. I mean, I probably shouldn't have tried standing to begin with, but I figured it wasn't that bad. Good thing I was close to a chair or I would have brained myself. So I saved you a funeral by handling it." He nodded as though solidifying his stance on the matter, and tore into his sandwich with typical adolescent voracity. Derek envied him for a moment. 

"Is there anything I can do to help?" He watched Stiles' eyebrows fly up his face as he regarded Derek and swallowed the cheekful of food he'd stuffed into his mouth. 

"Whoa. Is that actual concern? From a _Hale?_ " Derek proceeded to glare at him and Stiles held up his hands in a defensive position. "What? It's a true, once-in-a-lifetime rarity. But the answer is still no, not really, because it doesn't need a cast and I can only take so many ibuprofen a day. You should see me try to shower if you think this is a production. Good thing Scott's mom loaned him the car to come and get me." It was that quick, mile a minute talking he was used to from Stiles, and Derek figured he was fine after all. What was the line? "The ability to use sarcasm must be a sign of good health?" He snorted at the memory and that caused Stiles to give a chuckle too. They sat there for a moment, both wondering if they had just laughed about the same thing, and Stiles finished up his food and started hopping off to put away his dishes. Derek took his cue and stood up, pausing for a moment to consider all that he had learned tonight. He hadn't really considered Stiles to be weak in any way, but now that he thought about it, putting him behind werewolves just because he couldn't toss a car around was being unfair. Personally he had no clue how he would handle a broken foot if not for his human abilities, and yet Stiles took to it with a rough-edged determination that bordered on enjoyment. Turning the doorknob, Derek gave a brief smile to himself as he exited the McCall house.

Humans were pretty indelicate after all.


End file.
